


Every Sign You Left For Me To Find

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Headcanons Everywhere, Hurt/Comfort, It's Not a Conspiracy Theory if it's True, Multi, Other, Sentient Voltron Lions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23074375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Quintessence is the lifeblood of the universe, why wouldn't it be dangerous?Being part of Voltron seemed to mean dealing with a conga line of escalating disasters. For Keith, it wasn't the worst thing that he had dealt with though. Getting burned by Druids, and his weird reaction to it was low priority compared to literally everything else.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 97





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> My other fics aren't dead, I promise.

In hindsight, he should have just gone to the medbay. After suggesting leaving Allura behind-- a five person rescue mission on the central freaking hub of the Galra empire just screamed “trap!” The rest of the team’s horrified reaction to the suggestion left Keith feeling it best to let them forget that he existed for awhile. Asking for medical attention from Coran right after he said that they should leave the last of his family with Zarkon felt like a dick move. Just as he did with the stings from the scorpions around his Dad's home, Keith would hope that his hand would heal on its own, and if it got worse, he'd deal with it somehow.

They had a job to do, and even if he wasn’t at 100%, his suit would shield the burned, maybe poisoned, skin for now. In spite of the bone-deep ache in his hand, and the way that the muscles would shake and lock up with use, he could still grip the controls of his lion and his bayard. He would just have to try not to think about it until they all got some space to breathe.

After being chucked out of a wormhole, something that only intensified the ache in his hand and made his whole body thrum with an energy that was similar to the hum that he would pick up from the lions, he definitely didn’t feel well. He could still stand, though, and fight, which was more than what could be said for Takashi.

The Black Lion was a firm presence in his mind, content to let him man her controls and gently correcting him as, exhausted and only using his uninjured hand, he would drift off course, stealing anxious looks at his friend.

Though it came from the same source as his own wound, the claw marks on Takashi’s side were different from the purple tint Keith's hand had taken around the burn. Worse, Shiro's wound was still crackling with the sick energy and spreading. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if the Black Paladin’s wound continued to fester. He would fix this, somehow. He pressed his bad hand the what felt to be the wrong way against the controls, and flinched. Feeling increasingly helpless, Keith stared ahead, growling softly to himself.

“Keith, are you hurt?” Shiro asked weakly, glancing at the hand he wasn’t favoring.

“I…” Keith trailed off, assessing how alert his brother was. “Yeah. I got burned by a druid at the transport hub. That yellow stuff spilled on it and closed up the skin, but it looks… wrong, and it still hurts.”

Shiro hummed his understanding, leaving Keith thankful that he wasn’t chewing him out for not seeking medical attention. It wouldn’t have been viable with how soon they went from one mission to another, and saving Allura was top priority.

Speak of the devil. “Castle to Black. Shiro, are you there?” Keith opened the comms, and looked to Shiro to speak.

“Yes, me and Keith both.” Keith reached over to the holoscreen.

“Allura, Red’s at these coordinates. She couldn’t fly, so we took Black.” He eyed Shiro’s side. “Shiro’s going to need medical attention. He got hit by a druid and it’s glowing and spreading. I’m not sure what to do…”

Shiro shot him a look and spoke up. “Keith too. He was hurt by a druid on the transport hub, and it’s gotten to the point that he can’t use his hand.” 

“Wait.” Hunk’s voice, “Dude. Your hand was busted, and you still charged Zarkon!?”

“What the hell mullet!? It’s like you’re actively trying to die!”

“Den’s open Allura. We’re still working on limited power, but me and Hunk can pull them in with Yellow and Green if it comes to it.'

“Understood.” The princess said. “Shiro, we’ll be in range soon. All of us. Are you okay to pilot?”

“Ha… Not even a little bit.” He looked over to Keith with a wry grin. “Keith’s flying Black for now. Hunk and Pidge can haul in Red.”

“He’s flying Black? That’s not…” A pause, before she reengaged the com, voice sharp with anxiety. “Understood. Keith, land in the Den, Lance will help you bring yourself and Shiro to the med bay. Coran’s getting the pods ready as we speak.”

\---

They hit the bay quickly, and while Lance moved Shiro to a stretcher, Keith quickly repositioned Black for maintenance to be done later. All of the lions had been through a lot. Especially Red, Keith thought guiltily. She had been on board with charging Zarkon. Now that they knew that Zarkon had been the Black Paladin, and a close friend to Red’s first, the frustration and betrayal that she hummed with in every fight made a lot more sense.

Lance was quiet as they helped Shiro to the medbay. Keith held the stretcher with a single hand, propping the other corner on his wrist. Shiro wasn’t speaking, eyes closed in pain and breathing heavy.

They were panting by the time they hit the med bay and set Shiro up in a pod with minimal arguing. Lance, who Keith noticed had salt crusting his bangs, must have been wiped out from wherever he had been stranded. 

As Shiro was set into the pod, the light from his wound began to fade, and the… grating feeling that Keith didn’t realize he had been sensing, suddenly stopped. Keith only noticing it in its absence.

“Alright, now that that’s taken care of, undo your suit and let us have a look and see.” Coran approached from behind the pod he and Lance had hauled Shiro into. Keith rolled down the neck of his flightsuit, sliding out until it was gathered around his hips.

“Fuck!” He hissed as Coran suddenly grabbed his hand, running a small scanner over it. The color hadn’t spread past where his hand had been burnt, but the burning that had begun in his hand had traveled quickly, making his entire body ache like a bad flu..

Lance eyed him, lips together in an indignant frown. “Language!” said the guy still trying to fit ‘quiznak’ into every other conversation.

“Hm. Most unusual…” Coran let go of his arm and turned around, activating a scanner console. “Keith, step onto the platform and we’ll take some deeper scans. You said that it was causing you pain?”

Keith nodded, his body continuing to throb as he complied. “Yeah. It’s burned there and hurts to touch, but it’s hurting everywhere. Like ‘aching in your bones,’ but starting to go past an ache.”

“I see…” Coran looked over at the console, an uncharacteristic frown under the curve of his mustache. “That would make sense. The Galra do seem to be even more highly attuned to quintessence usage these days… and it seems that a lot of Human genetic data is stored within their bones” He waved a hand. “Most pre-warp species would become ill from exposure, and incinerate upon physical contact to it, like a lyrowhack-sheet in a fire.”

“On the other hand some peoples, like the Galra and my own, can handle, adapt to, and become even stronger from exposure to quintessence in certain amounts.”

“So… what? Humans are able to handle it?” Lance asked, looking nervous. “Or is Mullet’s skeleton, like, gonna melt or something?”

“Oh, thankfully nothing of the sort! He is definitely in a state of deterioration right now, but the Quintessence is encouraging regeneration as well. Naturally it’s painful, but he’ll recover just fine, if not stronger than before. Maybe even have a few years added to his lifespan.”

Keith frowned, looking at his hand. The burn had healed over, leaving a layer of rough purple skin that coated the lower center of his hand like a half-palm callous, trailing into lighter purple on the edges and back into dark… squishy, callous near his fingers, that were aching around the joints and under his nails. His middle and ring finger had locked together, as if the skin had melted and closed up while they were touching, and it took a close look to distinguish one from the other. “It burned straight through where it hit me, but it closed up, at least, just purple and weird.”

Coran continued reading through the results of the scans. “Tell me, you humans are a pre-warp species, correct? You have no frequent manipulation of Quintessence in your culture or technology?”

“Just the Blue Lion, I think. She…” Keith gestured with his good hand, searching for a word that would apply. “hummed. All of the time. I could always feel her, growing up, and all of the lions feel the same way. A lot of the things in this ship do, actually." He looked between the two. "Allura said that I was sensing Quintessence then. But, aside from a couple of things I found of my Dad’s that Mom left behind, there’s nothing else that really does it.”

“Things your mother left behind?” Coran looked increasingly uncomfortable. “Like?”

Keith shrugged. “Literally just a knife. Although Dad’s radio does the same humming thing.”

Lance scowled. “Well of course radios hum. But seriously, are you saying you're psychic or something?” Lance jabbed a hand at him.

“I would be more concerned about the radio, honestly.” Coran pinched his eyebrows, still alert, but obviously as exhausted as they were. “Will you show us the knife?”

“Ah, yeah.” Keith rubbed the back of his head with his good hand, before reaching down his flight suit and into the boots that it had formed the armor around, pulling out a bandaged knife and beginning to unwrap it. As he had predicted the first time he had seen Galran tech, the others tensed up at the sight of the sigil on the side.

“Dude. It’s glowing purple.”

“Yeah.” Keith frowned, really not wanting to talk about what he suspected. It had always been a curiosity, but now that he had more pieces to put together, Zarkon’s words, and Galran scanners that only responded to him, it was making an awful kind of sense. “It’s always done that.”

Still staring at Keith’s arm, Lance chimed in, eyes narrowing. “Well. That’s not sketchy as hell!”

Coran put a hand on Lance’s shoulder, still looking at Keith. “Number Three. Your planet hasn’t had any… visitors?”

Lance shook his head. “That depends on who you ask. Lots of people report spaceship sightings and stuff like that, but there’s never been any proof that aliens existed out there for the general public. We just assume there are because of how big the universe is.”

Keith disagreed. He was used to being lied to, and the Garrison tended to be the biggest liars of all. “Our military does have a pretty big hand in the news the public sees… ” Lance glared at him.

“You sure we’re talking about the same military?.” He muttered, eyeing the knife. He uncrossed his arms and stilled, as if he was preparing for a fight.

“Yes, okay?” Keith snapped, “The whole thing had always been a mystery to me. Anybody that could answer my questions was either dead or just… gone.” To his horror, his voice wavered. He was tired, hurting, and hungry. He just wanted to figure out how to fix his arm, go to bed, and not put words to what they were all starting to figure out.

“I think I understand.” Coran said, his voice softening. The boys straightened at the unfamiliar tone in his voice. The older Altean was looking at Keith with something like pity. “Keith, your parents are gone, correct?” Lance sprung backwards, looking at Keith, shocked. “What happened to them?”

Normally, Keith would have snapped back at the question, but he could tell that it was important that he answer. “My dad… died in a fire when I was 7. He was a firefighter, and a building collapsed with him still inside. I never met my mom.”

“That makes the situation clearer, yes. And with your arm as well.” Coran, broadcasting his movements, moved closer to Keith, gently grabbing the arm again and pulling out another device. The silence that followed was only broken by a string of clicks and beeps.

“Okay...” the shift in the mood of the room was making his stomach sink, and Keith felt his already present anxiety spike. “So what’s wrong with me?”

Lance cut in. “He’s part Galra, isn’t he? The Galra already know where Earth is. They’ve already been there.” He took a shaky breath and edged closer to Keith, hand inching towards his bayard as if he could defend himself from the possibility.

“Yes, there’s no doubt.” Coran didn’t raise his eyes from the device. “I do doubt that Number Four knew about it, but this does need to be discussed.”

It hit him then. The thought still didn’t feel solid in his head, like it was real, but he knew it was true. He felt his heart speed up, and he tried to silently count his breaths. A panic attack right now would be as incriminating as it would be embarrassing.

“I…” Keith took a shaky breath and tried again.

“That explains so much!” Lance waved a hand in Keith’s direction and then stopped, looking thoughtful. “Actually, it doesn’t really explain anything. We’ve really only met a handful of Galran officers, and a buttload of robots." The Galran officers were pieces of work, but they had never seen civilians or non-military members of the species. Maybe there weren't any. "What about the burn? You said deteriorating. Is he going to be okay?”

Coran put a hand on Lance’s shoulder, gently prompting him to stop. “Keith. You would have died upon contact with this much Quintessence if the non-human part of your genetics hadn’t existed. Whatever else is going on,” He gave Lance a stern look. “We are thankful that you’re still here with us.”

Everything in the background of Keith’s mind came to an abrupt stop. “I…” He took a shaky breath as he trailed off. “What?”

“My boy. Your genetic profile reads as ‘Galra’ on the maternal side.” Coran gave him a look that edged closer to concern than suspicion. Keith didn’t respond to Coran’s words, so the Altean took it upon himself to continue. “I wish I could say that that’s the only jarring news I have for you, but that quintessence blast did do a number on you, the way that high frequency radiation would do a number on cellular function. The part of you that’s Galra was enhanced by the quintessence, and I’m projecting that it will completely overtake your” he waved a hand “human-ness. Human genetic code seems to come with remarkable, almost Altean, flexibility, and yours, with the addition of quintessence, is transitioning to fully mimic your mother’s contribution to your genetics in order to handle the shock to your system. Given a phoebe or two, it’ll be difficult to tell the difference between you and a full Galra”

“You’re kidding, right?” He had always known he was strange, but this was unthinkable. His dad would have told him, or at least it would have been obvious looking at himself that his mom was a purple space-monster. “I mean, my mom wasn’t around, but… I’m human. I think I’d realize if I was another species, even partially.”

“If your mother had the technology, and caught the pregnancy early enough, selection of genetics is well within the realm of possibility, and, as uncommon as hybrid relationships were ten-thousand decaphoebes ago, ‘designer pregnancies’ were quite common within them in order to ensure the physical and social wellbeing of the child in question.”

“So, magic space eugenics are a thing, and Keith’s turning into a Galra?” Lance pointed, brow falling with a confused frown. "But he was already half Galra, but didn't look like it because of weird baby science." The Blue Paladin turned to look closely at Keith’s hand, making a face. “I mean, that explains the toe beans I guess? Is he going to get more?” Keith let out a hiss of pain as Lance poked at the still sensitive patch of skin in question.

“Those were rather typical in pre-empire Galra, so it's likely.” Coran frowned. “Keith, to put you in the pods right now would halt or distort the process. They wouldn’t be able to discern what they needed to heal.” He patted Keith on the back. “I imagine that it will be painful, considering how every bit of you is dying and being rewritten at an accelerated rate and all... Anatomy wise, the difference between you humans and Galrans is significant, but not enough so to be lethal. Your rate of maturation and aging though, is extremely different. Quintessence compatible species grow a lot slower and live a lot longer. Considering the age of your cells, you’re likely to regress a bit.” At that, the man forced a cheerful smile and patted Keith on the shoulder, causing him to flinch. “Still, I have faith that you can muscle through it!”

“Wait… regress?” He didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”

“Humans reach physical and mental maturity around 24 or so decaphoebes, correct?” Keith ran the math in his head. A phoebe was about a month, give or take a few days, ‘deca’ meant ten… He nodded. In spite of everything that was going on, he was kind of impressed that Coran had picked up on a detail like that in the short time that they had known each-other.

“A lucky Galran, exceptionally lucky with the way war is ingrained into their culture and all, would live somewhere around one to twelve-thousand decaphoebes, with their age of maturation being around 200. It’s why we can consider it unlikely that you’re a spy. Galra of my time would consider separating children from their unit at your age unthinkable”

“Ha!” Lance slapped him on the back. “You’re like a space toddler!” Keith batted his hand away, glaring.

Coran looked thoughtful. “Lance, from what you’ve said about your family, human toddlers are coddled quite a lot. I believe it's because that stage is so short for humans. Before the Empire, we saw Galran children of Number Four’s age behave quite capably. None were put forward for direct combat except in the direst of circumstances, but they were in the beginnings of training for it and learning what they were selected to specialize in as adults. It was much the same for Alteans.”

“What’s going to happen to me then?” The idea of his body switching species was bad enough, but ending up back in a state where he would have to depend on others, even a little, left Keith wanting to punch something.

At that Coran sombered. “The machines can only predict so much, and I'm no doctor, though I would suggest finding one so that nothing is overlooked." He began adjusting the scanner, double-checking the data. "Allura isn’t going to take this news well, I’m afraid. We will wait until the Black paladin is awake to share our discovery. He’ll keep her from doing something regrettable.”

This was the day that the boot dropped then. He knew that it was going to happen at some point. No matter who he met, or how they seemed at first, it always did. He shouldn't be this anxious then. He was a pro at this now. It even seemed like Coran and Lance still wanted him around.

The thought of Allura’s reaction sent Keith’s mind spinning. Any friendship that was beginning to form between them, was over. Shiro too. Keith thought, while his heart sank into his stomach. He couldn’t imagine Shiro hating him, exactly, but who would call one of the monsters who kidnapped and enslaved them their brother? Hunk would be scared of him… But Hunk had always been kinda scared of him, so he guessed that that was okay. Lance already didn’t seem to care, after it was clear that he wasn’t an enemy spy, so there was that, at least. One of the things that Keith admired about the guy was his universal, nearly unconditional friendliness, even if the guy’s demeanor to him was combative and obnoxious. He couldn’t call Pidge’s reaction before he saw it. She was pretty rational and he couldn’t imagine her blaming him for the actions that other Galra took. Still, she was pretty shaken after Sendak hijacked the castle, and things would definitely change if he looked like a Gal- was a Galra.. Things would be tense.

“-uuude” Lance was waving a hand in front of his face. “Coran, I think you broke him.” Keith looked back at the pair, feeling like a stranger.

“I kinda knew that there had always been something wrong with me, but I don’t know how to react to this.” His dad was dead. His foster parents had given up on him and he was a ‘lost cause.’ Shiro was dead, then he wasn’t. Magic space lions were out there and he was the destined pilot of the best one. Aliens were real, and an evil empire had enslaved and traumatized the hell out of his brother and would destroy everything he knew on a whim. Keith was no stranger to troubling revelations, but it never got any easier to actually handle them. All he could do was live by the new ‘rules,’ whatever they were, and try to endure it.

He flinched as Lance reached out for him, slinging an arm around his back. “You’ve got time to figure it out, okay?” He met Keith’s eyes, uncharacteristically serious. “Keith, we’re still going to be here no matter what species you are.”

Feeling something snap within him at the startlingly warm words, Keith turned away, eyes filling, while he tried to hide it. Damn it, he would not cry in front of Lance. “I need a shower.” He mumbled, striding away.

Lance called after him, “Come back when you’re done! We’ll all have a sleepover while we’re waiting for Shiro to pop out.” The fact that they needed to be near the Den in case of an emergency went unsaid. Even though the princess had allotted them rooms with beds to use, he doubted that any of the Paladins had actually made use of them since the Balmera. It felt too much like they would be under attack again at any given moment.

He made his way to the nearest shower, picking the least smelly of the Altean soaps. Its smell bore a disturbing resemblance to sunscreen; He wouldn’t be surprised if some kind of protectant was included. They were in space with no ozone to protect them from the rays of nearby stars, after all.

At the very least, the shower was warm, easing the ache that had spread from his arm to every part of him. He looked down at the hand in question. His nails and fingers had taken a purple tint. At least it hadn’t been poison. He could deal with being hated by people he was randomly stuck with for things beyond his control, if that was what happened, but being dead would probably be worse. Maybe.

He looked at his other hand. The only purple to be seen, was a barely-there shade in the beds of his nails, the nails themselves felt like they were being pushed out, and had lost some of the pink that was natural to them.

He wondered how long it would take for the change to be obvious. He wondered if he was imagining the way that as he scrubbed, his skin seemed to lack its normal pinkish undertones. Would he bleed the dark magenta shade that he had seen ooze from Sendak’s burns?

He decided to do his best not to think about it. He’d keep busy, keep proving his worth to Shiro and the others, and hopefully, they’d let him stick around.

\---

Coran was right about Shiro coming to his defense against Allura. When she was told, she immediately ordered the others to imprison him.

“Whoa…” Hunk waved his hands around, as if to clear the hostility in the air. “Keith’s our friend, remember!?”

“Allura,” Shiro put a hand on her shoulder. “He didn’t know. He grew up human. I’ve known him since he was a kid. This isn’t a choice that he made.”

“But how do you know?” Allura’s voice wobbled, and she tried to recompose herself, shrugging Shiro’s hand off. “With your primitive technology, falsifying an identity would have been child’s play for the Galra. You said yourself that he was searching for the Blue Lion. He knew about it before any of you did. And,” she shot Keith a dirty look. “How do you not know what species you are? You're compatible with the Red Lion, which has been in Galran hands for stars know how long, and someone clearly took pains to hide you among humans, and why do that if not to eventually infiltrate Voltron itself?” She was right. This did look really bad. Honestly, Keith wondered the same thing himself. What if he was some sort of plant?

Pidge adjusted her glasses. “We’ve mind-melded, remember? Even if we don’t know everything about him or his history, we know his intentions and why he’s fighting. Keith’s in it with us.”

“My father said the same thing of Zarkon at first.” Allura looked away, hands curling into fists. “He was wrong too.”

“Besides,” Lance chimed in. “Mullet’s too straightforward to pull off any plan like that. In case you don’t remember, his idea of solving a problem is charging at it headfirst without backup.” He smirked at Keith. “Subtlety’s definitely not a thing with him.”

To Keith’s relief (and embarrassment,) Allura seemed to agree, relaxing slightly and giving him a searching look. She sighed, bringing a hand to her forehead. “I don’t like this.”

Keith shrugged, the presence of judging eyes making him feel much less stoic than before. “I doubt it helps, but I’m not exactly thrilled either.”

The Altean ran her fingers through her hair. “I… Zarkon went mad from exposure to rift quintessence. He was loyal to the Coalition before, even though he disagreed with how my father handled things.” Her face became stern. “His warlords and generals were the ones to follow him into this war, leading the entire population under his control. Even when Zarkon was aligned with Voltron, they disagreed even with the idea of peaceful exchange with other worlds, desiring to conquer instead. And when those in power make a decision…” She shook her head looking sad. “It doesn’t matter if the rest of the nation, even the majority, disagree. They’ll be brought around eventually or forced to comply, whether it’s through propaganda, the threat of poverty, or military force.”

“My hatred of the Empire hasn’t blinded me enough to blame an entire species for the actions of its leaders.” She turned to Keith, distress apparent. “But you have to understand how suspicious your situation is, and how we can’t afford even the chance of a betrayal. Coran says that you said you were in possession of a transmission device and a ritual blade. That is as suspicious as it can get, Keith.”

Pidge looked shifty. “I… trust me. The radio’s not a thing. And he was watched pretty closely all his life by the Garrison.” Keith looked at her in shock. “His dad didn’t fool anyone, and the Garrison was recording and hiding a lot of alien contact from the Mars satellites onward.”

Shiro’s eyes widened. “What?” Keith put a hand on his back, a reminder to breathe slowly and try to come down. The older man, forced himself to relax at least physically, then asked again. “Why wouldn’t they tell their pilots that?” If that was true, then Shiro and Pidge’s family had been intentionally sent into a situation where they’d come into contact with aliens.

Pidge sighed. “I hacked their systems, remember. Looked into the files they had on anything adjacent to Kerberos, you included, which led me to what they had on Keith too.” They ran a hand through their hair, still greasy from being stranded and on duty for who knows how long? “There was recorded alien contact, starting in the 1K-50’s, but it seemed to have been established even earlier. Long story short, they were preparing for the possibility of an Imperial invasion, and were trying to come up with a way to defend/evade one if it happened.. I…” she looked at Keith guiltily. “There were a couple interviews with who I think is Keith’s mom in there. She requested a trade of information, for the assurance that they would leave you and your dad alone”

Keith stared, but stayed silent, signalling that the brunette should continue. “In the interview, she said that she had to divert their attention away from the planet, but it would only delay the inevitable. What the Garrison did with Keith after his parents were gone was for the most part a lot of consecutive beaurocratic fuck ups. Nobody involved with him on their payroll actually knew what he was there for. His foster homes and doctors and schools were all Garrison adjacent, but… they all thought he was being housed as a threat, not a kid, so…”

Now that Keith thought about it, the fact that the Garrison had cleared the way for him to reclaim his dad’s house on land that they technically owned… He was never letting Lance make fun of him being a conspiracy theorist again. He had tried not to get into the pseudo-schizophrenic ‘the government is controlling everything in my life’ mindset, but to say that he hadn’t been suspicious of the situation by the time he was 9 would be a lie. Even meeting Shiro may have been scripted, he would have to ask.

“This is so messed up.” Lance muttered, putting a hand on his forehead. “And you didn’t say something earlier, because?”

Pidge shrugged. “Until Shiro crash landed, I was working on my own and trying to avoid attention.” They frowned. “Spilling Level-8 classified secrets or even trying to contact Keith for any reason would definitely have been counterproductive. Did you know that they still had Adam assigned to keep tabs on him?” Shiro flinched, and Keith frowned at him. “Then after we came here, it was never the most urgent thing we had to deal with.” She gestured at Keith’s arm, “Now it kinda is? If he’s not hurt-hurt, we’ve still got bigger problems, really. No offense, Keith.”

“Still kinda offended.” Pidge hummed, unapologetic. He couldn’t let himself hold it against them, Keith knew, if they wanted to keep Voltron in the game.

“If I may cut in,” Coran remarked. “With the changes he is going through, I’d recommend keeping Number Four on a close medical watch anyways.” He brushed his moustache. “Close enough that you aren’t alone for any period of time, for fear of any of your vital functions failing as they are rewritten. Aside from that, Galrans your age would be considered too young to be left alone by their family units in the first place.”

“Well, apparently, I don’t have a problem with being watched or monitored.” He didn’t bother to keep the bite out of his voice. Shiro looked guilty, and Keith unconsciously bared his teeth. “Tons of experience with it.” For the second time that day, he teared up, but tried to hold it in his eyes. Hunk made a concerned sound but nobody acknowledged it.

“Galra are traditionally ‘pack’ creatures, and developmentally, Keith is very young for one. Being left alone at his age can cause emotional instability and physical deterioration, alongside a failure to develop or even comprehend a sense of social awareness.” Keith winced. It wasn’t like humans dealt well with growing up alone either, and, as a foster kid, (or apparently pseudo-foster kid) he had been put through a fuck ton of therapy to start with. But he could recognize a lot of the things that he felt were intrinsically wrong with him in Coran’s words. He bit his lip, feeling an ache in his gums. As a kid he had thought that nobody had wanted him because he wasn’t a normal, cheerful kid. But he wasn’t a normal, cheerful kid because he was so alone in the first place.

Pidge interjected. “I mean, when he took us to the Blue Lion, he had been living nearly alone in the desert for a year.” They turned to him, frowning. “I mean, he looks okay, even if the emotional instability and social awareness issues are totally a thing.”

“I wasn’t totally alone. There was Adam.” He wasn’t about to bring Adam up too much in front of Shiro though. After being expelled from the Garrison, the man had frequently checked in on him, even helping him find odd jobs in nearby towns. Just as Adam looked after Keith on the days that he would get stuck in his own head and be unable to take even the simplest actions, the few times that it happened, Keith was the one to bring Adam home when he wasn’t able to make it back from wherever he had chosen to drink and forget by himself. He and Adam had been estranged after everything, and the last thing that they were ever going to do was talk about Shiro or their feelings, but looking out for each other still came naturally, it seemed. Or at least he had thought. Who knew how much of his time with Shiro and Adam was real?

Still, there was something to what Coran was saying. The only times that he felt like anything close to a person were the days that he had spent with Shiro. At the first sign of kindness, and of seeing (pretending to see?) Keith as anything other than a problem, he had basically latched onto the man, and, unlike anyone else Keith had tried to reach out to, Shiro had ended up reaching right back out to him. Keith took a shaky breath. Yeah, Voltron was out of the question until he figured out how much of what Shiro had done with him was real.

Aside from the highlights, dramatic as they were, Keith could hardly remember the time after his dad and before Shiro. He had survived, and that was all that he could say about it. After Shiro, he had been unstable, sure. Grief and denial and anger at the unfairness of it all bouncing around in his chest until there was nothing left in him that worked. He couldn’t think about himself then. 15 pounds lighter because of skipped meals? Whatever. Kicked out the Garrison? Who cared? He’d find Shiro or he’d die trying. Either way would have been an acceptable result to him.

He ran his more human hand through his hair, both slightly darkened with pinpricks of purple. “Why don’t I just move into the medbay for now?” It would satisfy Allura’s need to keep him under watch, as the status of the medbay and its occupants were available to access from every console in the castle, not to mention Allura’s connection with the castle itself.

Hunk put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “A sleepover. Let’s make it a sleepover.” Keith stiffened, before forcing himself to relax. He was probably not going to be left to his own devices for a long time.

Coran brushed his moustache. “I can set up accommodations for you all, yes. There’s more than enough space, and considering the extremity of the changes that we can predict, along with the possibility of those we can't… Yes, that might be for the best."

Shiro nodded, casting a guilty look at Keith. “It’s also closer to the zip-lines and Den than our rooms are. With how Zarkon's managed to track us down, it’s probably better that we’re together.”

Allura still looked worried, but brought a hand to her chin in thought. “I suppose…” She glanced at Keith. “I will ask that you leave your bayard in Red for the time being, along with any other weapons or communication devices that you may have. And we will search your room and person.”

Keith crossed his arms, but nodded. He really didn’t have anything worth hiding, (apparently, he had never been able to hide anything) and hadn’t brought anything but his pack, which had been stocked with a now-obsolete first aid kit, a couple of home-made explosives, already used up, some ration bars, and a cheap smartphone with a cracked screen..

“I have an Earth communicator in my room too, in my pack, but it relies on our satellites and a specific kind of power source, so it’s nothing more than a dead camera and data storage at this point.” Keith explained, as Allura unwrapped the knife.

"Okay, so everything aside." Lance cut in, waving his arms. "Is he even going to be in fighting shape?" Lance flung a hand in Keith's direction. "We've already had to run away from Zarkon's flagship twice since the rescue. If they keep finding us…"

"I can deal." Keith grabbed his arm. "It's not like we're not all dead if I can't or anything."

"Keith…" Shiro frowned, reaching out. "Let us know how you feel if it comes to it. We can't pull you out of the fight completely, but we can at least adjust."

Keith let Shiro reach for him, feeling oddly shaky as he willed himself not to lean into the touch. He couldn’t stop talking to Shiro, not with Voltron at stake, but he couldn’t look at him either. "As long as I can stay awake and inside her, Red can help." He felt her presence warm with agreement. She would help him keep them safe.

Allura nodded, still frowning. "Yes. The fact that you survived contact with quintessence might be helpful there. Is that normal for your species?"

Keith shook his head. "Coran already scanned to check. It's not, and it's why I'm changing."

Allura looked away. "Still, I am glad for your survival… Even if it's your heritage that saved you." She turned towards the hall and ducked her head. "I will return to the bridge... Be well, Keith."

"Okay, if that's settled." Pidge stretched her arms above her head, letting her shoulders crack. "I'm gonna bring my gear in here and set up shop. Sleepover or not, there's still a lot of data to comb through." They looked up at Keith. “I can show you what I lifted from the Garrison too. But you should definitely talk this whole thing out with Shiro first.”

Hunk nodded. "The Alteans have a couple types of ingredients that contain adenosine-blockers, like caffeine." He looked sheepish. "The least gross one I could use isn't exactly sweet, but if you don't mind a salty flavored drink, we could have a coffee substitute on hand at the start of the day-cycle."

Shiro smiled, genuine in spite of everything. “Thanks Hunk, we’d appreciate that.” Even while trying to remain distant and professional, his eyes almost sparkled at the mention of coffee. Though Keith couldn't stomach coffee himself, his one attempt ending in a long bout of vomiting, Keith remembered how often Adam had complained about Shiro's addiction to caffeine, and Shiro's grumpiness in the mornings. Really, with the workload that the Garrison had given him, the physical therapy he had to attend to mitigate his disease, and the time that he had somehow decided on his own to set aside to look after Keith, nobody could really judge him for a slight dependence on the drink. " It would be great to have that on hand."

On the screen that monitored the med-bay Keith could see that Lance and Coran were already piling soft-looking pallets and blankets in the middle of the floor. When they finished, Lance, already in pajamas somehow, flopped over into the mass.

One by one, the bridge emptied, until it was just him and Shiro.

Keith, tired, cut straight to the point. “Did the Garrison tell you to be my friend?”

Shiro looked exhausted, and so sad. “Keith..-”

“Just-” Keith started to snap, hands curled into fists. He caught himself, and stopped. “I… sorry. I know that we have to trust each-other” To form Voltron, went unsaid. He looked down at his purple hand. “I know you’re good. Too good. But, you and Adam were like... my definition of family.” Shiro looked stricken. “I just want to know how much of that was orders.”

Shiro nodded. “The only orders I got were to convince you to join the Garrison in some capacity. The rest was all me.” He touched his face. “Honestly, we thought the orders were just a recruitment and mentoring assignment.” He smiled at Keith. “You were definitely smart and talented enough to warrant the military wanting your talents working for them. Once I was made your guardian, Adam and I were asked about you from time to time, but the question was pretty much always ‘How’s Keith doing?’”

“Okay.” Keith took a breath. He knew Shiro cared about him, and he knew he would always care about Shiro. That didn’t make this less hard. Harder than the whole ‘not-human’ thing for sure. “Okay. I’m still glad you’re okay. I’m still worried you and everyone’s going to hate me for being, and starting to look Galra.” Shiro moved to interrupt, but Keith silenced him with a glare. “I know that one’s not rational, after everything everyone said, but that doesn’t mean I can stop myself from getting ready for it. And it is going to be a problem when we meet other people.”

Shiro hummed, not arguing. “Are we okay?”

Keith nodded. “Yeah, I think so? The whole ‘never giving up on you’ thing goes both ways, you know?” He looked away. “I can’t just shut you out, even when I want to.” He looked up, nervous. “I don’t, by the way.”

Suddenly he was being hugged. Hesitantly, he reached back.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weird formatting, I know. I'll come back and fix it once I figure out all of this Homestuck format stuff.

That morning, Allura announced that they would be forgoing training in order to work with Coran on Castle repairs. The Lions and Castle could self-repair to some extent, but while the parts themselves would form back together, it seemed that every piece of the Castle and Lions that took damage had to be recalibrated and adjusted in some way, and with the size of the ship, there were still several systems that hadn’t been properly realigned since Coran and Allura woke up. 

Curled up in her seat, Pidge hummed, still cradling a cup of not-ffe. “Alright. It’s Red and Green who need the most attention, although all of the Lions could use a quick system check. Between me and Hunk, that’ll take 3 or 4 hours max.”

“Hours?”

“...right. It’ll be about 2 to 3 vargas with the two of us working. I had already gotten started on Green when we picked up Shiro and Keith.”

Shiro nodded. “That’ll work. At least if we’re not attacked.”

“From the information we gathered, an attack should be unlikely in this sector.” Allura said. “No Galra cruisers were scheduled to be stationed in this sector, and it’s not so uninhabited that the Druids would use it.” 

“I dunno…” Hunk frowned. “After the attack on Central Command, I’d think they’re going to go a lot harder on the offensive.”

“All the more reason to focus on what repairs we can before that happens.” Allura stood. “I will be on the bridge, trying to contact old allies. I will monitor the scanners as I do so.”

Lance smiled. “I guess that leaves the rest of us with you Coran-my-man.” 

“Splendid!” Coran clapped his hands together. “Between the four of us, we’ll be able to clean out the external scanners and realign the main thrusters in a matter of vargas, we may even be able to reactivate a few secondary power systems my Pop had squirreled away”

Keith listened to the exchange, fighting to keep his eyes open and to keep from visibly nodding off. He felt like he had picked up the flu, at least the soreness and exhaustion of one. At the very least, he wasn’t feeling nauseated, like he had been every time he ate the nastily sweet food goo. He would never have brought it up himself, but that morning, Coran had shown them how to adjust the dispensary so that it would produce a more Galra-friendly alternative, making a thicker orange paste that tasted like meat that had been preserved through smoking, but acidic somehow. When he said as much Lance had immediately stuck a spoon in his bowl to try, promptly spitting the spoonful back out into a towel upon tasting the goo. 

“Keith, what the hell? That’s so gross!” 

“Shouldn’t I be the one saying that?” 

“No seriously!” Lance turned to Hunk. “Concept: The reason why the Galra are so mean is because their food just tastes awful.”

Hunk snorted. “A tragedy, really.” 

“It doesn’t taste that bad!”

“Dude, it’s the alien equivalent of mustard, soy-sauce, and” He held up a finger and took another spoonful “raspberries, definitely raspberries.”

“Keith my man.” Hunk put a hand on his shoulder the other over his eyes, shielding an expression that was somewhere between laughter and sobbing. “Food is supposed to taste good.” 

Lance narrowed his eyes. “You were totally the kid who put ranch on everything, weren’t you?” 

“He was!” Shiro chimed in, looking more energized than he had in weeks. “When we would take him out to eat, he would just open the packets and” he gestured, making a hissing noise “suck them down.”

Hunk closed his eyes, holding up a hand. “I need some time to process this. I can’t even look at you right now.”

With no heat behind it, Keith shot Shiro a betrayed look, “I’ll just go throw myself out of the airlock now.”

“As you should!”

Turns out, they all had to jump out of the airlock in order to complete the external repairs that Coran needed done. Oddly enough, the weightless sensation of deep space made him feel better, at least a bit.

_[If you loosen the blaxums on the somoflange here, I think we’ll be done on the outside!]_

Even with Shiro upside down above him, Keith could picture the baffled look on the man’s face. Lance shrugged, maneuvering over to the center of the device. “He’s probably just screwing with us. There’s only one thing to loosen, so let’s just go with that.”

Suddenly, they were being pelted by brownish...moss? 

“What the-?” Shiro raised a hand. “Shit, space debris, we need to regroup under the”

“Shiro-” Keith prodded.

“-remember your projectile training.”

“Shiro!” 

He and Lance were on the same page, it seemed. Lance grabbed a ball of the glowing substance holding it out for the older man to see.

“It’s squishy.”

The man stared at them, tension slow to leave his shoulders. “Oh.”

In the end, they had Pidge run a quick scan of it. “Holy shit this is so cool.” they breathed, explaining how the luminescence was conveying a coded sequence. 

They looked like they were about to run off to the workshop, but then caught themself to ask. “Shiro, I know you wanted me to double check your arm for any info the Galra might have slipped in sometime this cycle. What’s our priority here?”

Shiro grimaced, thinking it over. “Let’s go with the moss for now. My arm’s not going anywhere.”

It turned out that the moss was a distress signal sent from a nearby planet, coincidentally holding a mega-technological society that was a previous member of Voltron’s alliance. At Allura’s request, he kept his helmet on and his visor darkened. They’d have a better argument for why a Galra was on their team after they liberated the planet, if it came up.

It wasn’t especially obvious on his face, but dark purple had been freckling up his skin, and the normal pinkish-red undertones typical to humans had turned bluish. Standing next to everyone else he looked a bit like a zombie, he thought. He had woken that morning to bloody claws poking out from under his increasingly loose fingernails. To his horror, it was looking like he had one digit less on each hand, his pinky on the burned hand completely disappearing, and the one on the other beginning to fuse. He refused to look under his boots, but the ache in the joints of his legs and the balls of his feet probably meant he’d have to accommodate a change there sooner rather than later. His ears felt weird, but hadn’t noticeably changed in shape. They were, on the other hand, one of the several places across his body that had started to grow a layer of lilac fuzz.

He didn’t look too much like a Galra, but in the span of a couple of days, enough differences had stacked up for the team to withhold details.

Still, the ruse only lasted as long as it did for Ryner to offer them weaponry in the form of headbands. When Ryner offered one to him, he hesitated and caught Shiro’s gaze. Reading the situation, the older man looked from Allura to him and then offered Keith a placid shrug to let him know he could decide whether to reveal himself or not. Straight up lying wasn’t the best way to start an alliance, so Keith nodded and lowered his helmet. 

Ryner’s smile didn’t waver. “Realize that we had determined your species from our initial scans of your spacecraft.” She nodded at Allura. “Most Empire-occupied planets have this capability, so it is best to approach them without an attempt to keep secrets breaching the trust you are trying to build.” Ryner looked to Keith, who was fiddling with the headband, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Or breaking the morale of your comrades.”

Keith ducked his head, a noise he couldn’t identify starting to rise from his throat before he choked it down. Hearing the increasingly bizarre changes in his body discussed just made him feel weirder in his skin. He wasn’t vain, but found himself wishing he could disappear, or at least put the helmet back on. 

Allura looked taken aback for a second, then flushed, markings shifting to a light grey. “I apologize. We feared you would not accept our help if we had a Galra with us.”

Ryner softened, eyes wandering to Pidge, who was engrossed trying to explain binary code and bits to Lance and Hunk. “The Olkari understand that, at the deepest level, we are all made of the same cosmic dust, each species, no matter what shape, following the same mathematical laws.” She looked to Allura, then Keith. “We also are mindful that the Empire and the ways of its soldiers are pieces of a political being, not a biological one.”

She crouched down to meet them at eye level, pointing to the headbands. “These creations are made to mimic a skill that the two of you already possess in some form, reading and reaching out to the quintessence present in the universe around us, and projecting commands to it in a language that it can read, understand, and respond to.” 

Allura straightened, eyes wide. “That’s alchemy.”

Ryner nodded, “As Alteans called it, yes. The concept is performed in many species under many names.” She looked between the two of them, letting her eyes rest on Keith. “I would suggest that you talk to your Green Paladin about her experience with Quintessence wielding, and then hone the skill yourself. It will prove useful against those in the Empire who use their own skills and creations to corrupt and destroy.”

Keith stiffened. “The druids.” 

“Yes.”

“This,” he waved a hand at Pidge, who was coaxing Lance into growing a sapling. “This is the same thing as what they do?”

“The same concept, used for a vastly different purpose.” Ryner frowned. “Poison, after all, is often what could be called medicine when applied in a different way.”

Keeping her eyes on the other Paladins, Allura’s expression hardened with resolve, marks glowing red. “We hear your words.”

By sundown, they had diverted the Galra from the planet, retrieved the Olkarion’s sell-out king and restrained the cube that the Galra had commissioned. Keith tried not to slump against a wall as Shiro and Allura finalized the alliance between Voltron and the Olkari. A constant hum in the background had started a couple of minutes ago, and the feel of it was leaving him on edge. The sooner they left the better. 

“I want to thank you all.” Ryner, the new Queen of Olkari said. “You helped us get our home back, and for that we will never be able to fully repay you.”

Shiro met her words with a smile. “Just promise that when it’s time to take the fight to Zarkon, we can count on you for help.” The words in themselves were comforting, but in the background, Keith couldn’t help but flinch as the humming intensified.

“Shiro. Something’s wrong.” He had been trying to wait until they were alone to alert the others of what he was sensing, but as a sudden wave of dread made his stomach sink, he couldn’t hold himself back anymore.

The wind suddenly intensified, as the shadow of another Robeast passed over them. 

Keith looked to Ryner. “I think we’re going to be fighting sooner than later.” Ryner turned to him and nodded before turning her eyes to the large beast.

She addressed Shiro, “I have an idea. Keep your comms open.” 

He nodded at her before breaking into a sprint, Keith behind him. “Paladins! To your Lions!”

Keith was aware that he was projecting his distress through Voltron’s bond, but he couldn’t divert the attention required to care. “Guys… There’s a person in there.” He didn’t quite understand how he knew, but he was sure of it. Somebody had been tortured and twisted and ended up as the Robeast before them, just like on Arus and on the Balmera, probably. He hadn’t been as aware of it then, but it was the same feeling. The bond wavered, his feelings echoed back by the other paladins, Shiro the only one among them with the steel to hold them together.

He could feel Shiro thinking. “Then it’s up to us to end their misery.” Determination. Sorrow. Fear.

The beast turned a cannon at them. As one, Keith and Pidge moved their Lions to ease the blow. The shockwave hit, and he couldn’t distinguish between his pain and Pidge’s, but he knew the sound of his own screams.

Catching his breath, he yelled. “We need to scatter!” Before they broke the bond, he dove in deeper than he had ever been comfortable with, projecting his idea; Have Lance and himself keep the Robeast’s attention with the faster lions. 

Anxiety. 

Confidence. Lance could afford to show off with those spins. He could keep up..

The slower lions would chip at the thing’s defenses where they saw an opportunity. 

Pidge is beat, I’ll provide cover for them.

Sounds good. 

Let’s go already!

They split, Keith flying right into the thing’s face before swerving around its head in a move that made his stomach flip. The Robeast began to chase him away from the Olkari settlement, and he continued the chase, trying to get out of reach of the planet’s gravitational pull. 

The Robeast aimed its mouth(?) at him and sucked, slowing his lion down and pulling him backwards, before the trajectory of the attack was jolted to the side by a blast from Blue, who was quick to gain the thing’s attention. (At the very least, Robeasts didn’t seem to be very capable of recognizing strategy.)

Lance led it further away, leaving room for Keith to deflect its cannon.

 _[Voltron. We are sending aid.]_ Ryner’s voice rang through the coms. _[Have the monster inhale it.]_ A large mass rose from the planet. It was the spores from before, covering...

“Hunk!” 

“On it!” Hunk used his Lion to maneuver the object, angling it to face Red and Blue. “Guys, get that vacuum going, then get behind me!” 

“Done.” With Lance at his side, Keith began flying back towards Hunk, the two crossing paths and circling around as the monster tried to ram them. After what seemed like forever, it attempted to use its vacuum again. 

“Now!” Hunk’s Lion released the object, leaving it to float slowly forward, until Shiro drove Black to it, forcing it forward.

The package drifted forward, spores unraveling in the suction of the vacuum. Keith saw the !flash of a black corner inside. “I think it’s the weapon from before.”

“The Olkari must have reprogrammed it!” Pidge was right. The Robeast sucked up the self replicating spores, alongside the self replicating cube. After a few tense seconds, it’s insides began to expand, before it was ripped apart from inside. Though the outside of the beast was metal, the gore was clear to their eyes, and only made clearer in zero gravity.

The comms were silent, only for Hunk’s retching to break through the quiet. “I’m sorry,” he gagged. “I’ve been trying to be better about this, but…” 

“No, buddy. We’re right there with you.” Lance said. “This is totally a ‘cry in the shower’ kind of day.” 

“Shiro, you okay?” 

The older Paladin didn’t answer, but Black began heading back towards the Castle, humming in Keith’s mind. She would take care of Shiro, he would take care of the others. 

Eventually, Pidge broke the silence. “That was… “

“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “We ended his misery, I think.” He said, voice low. “Let’s just… check in for now.” 

“No distress signal was able to leave our planet during the infiltration. No remote contact could be established, aside from the factory’s routine communications.” Ryner crossed her arms. “We ensured that.”

The princess stiffened, clearly ill at ease. It looked like Allura was going to go on the offensive again, so Keith stepped in. “Do you have any ideas of how Zarkon could have found us, then?”

Ryner looked thoughtfully towards Keith, then looked to Shiro who was present, but had withdrawn from conversation after a particularly bad flashback. “I would thoroughly check any technology that was in the hands of the Empire for any amount of time.”

Keith nodded. “Red then, and Shiro’s arm.”

The Queen nodded. “I suspect that searching the lion will be best left to members of Voltron. We would like to assist with the Black Paladin’s arm. Any insight into the work of Galran druids could be helpful in diverting them.”.

Keith looked to Shiro. “Is that okay?” 

The expression on his friend’s face said that it clearly wasn’t, but circumstances were what they were. “I’ll probably lash out.” Shiro admitted. “Keith, you and Allura need to be there to keep me from hurting anyone.”

“You are welcome to stay, of course.” Ryner looked to Shiro. “I know the suggestion may cause you pain, and I apologize, but would you consider allowing us to develop you a new arm?”

“I…” Shiro struggled with himself for a minute. “The arm stands in for my bayard, and has been essential for close combat against the Galra. If you can keep that in mind, I would be able to consider it.” 

“Then we will keep that in mind. “ Ryner smiled. “Let us go quickly. If you are being tracked, we need to pinpoint it before Zarkon strikes again.”

The Olkari ended up removing three objects from Shiro’s arm. Two were failsafes (already deactivated somehow) meant to induce obedience that could be activated with proximity to a druid. Keith shuddered. One was a data chip with nothing but coordinates on it. When asked about it, Shiro admitted that it was given to him by a Galra, the same one who installed his arm, and the same one who helped him escape, though the details were still made suspect because of his memory.

“All of that, and still no tracker…” Pidge crossed their arms in front of their chest. 

Lance stood up, brushing his suit off. “Then we have to go. At least we know Zarkon will direct his force at us, and not these people.”

“Yeah.” Keith nodded. He could already tell, this was going to be bad.

Lance turned to Keith. “Hey, do you get that whole ‘everything is capital ‘W’ Wrong’’ feeling you were projecting every time a Robeast gets close?”

He frowned. “I think so. The whole…” He waved an arm at himself “quintessence thing made it a lot stronger though.” Lance patted him on the shoulder.

“It gives us something though.” Pidge said. “If they’re warping to us, that might be the only warning we get.”

Keith frowned, “We still need to double check Red though.” A gentle nudge, and a feeling of indignance. “I think it wouldn’t hurt to check with Black too.” Zarkon had been her paladin, after all, and Keith was beginning to think that that bond was open both ways.

Shiro stood, gripping his arm and looking exhausted. “Let’s go back to the Castle. We’ll have Allura warp to an uninhabited system and go from there.”

\-------------

Even in an uninhabited system, they were being pursued without stop. Sleep came in spurts, always in the stack of mattresses in the med bay. They stopped bothering to change out of their armour, and Shiro seemed to be getting worse. They all did.

“This has to stop, soon.” Keith told Hunk, the two of them searching the castle stores for quick rations. Keith had had to stop wearing his boots as his feet changed shape, but the shapeshifting armor had him covered at least.

“What can we do though?” Hunk asked. “There’s no tracker, anywhere.”

“Hm.” Keith nodded to himself, having the shadow of an idea. He’d have to go see Lance to make sure though. He felt his ears twitch, something that had started a few days ago as they grew larger and more furry and something that he was dying to make stop. Changing shape had quickly gone from urgent to something he would just have to ignore for now and deal with later. There were more important things going on.

“Blue?” Lance asked incredulously. “I mean, sure! I can totally feel her from here. Why?”

Keith shook his head, grimacing as he failed to disguise his ears tilting back. “I was able to track her down from far away too. Because of Quintessence magic-bullshit or something.” Lance looked like he was going to argue with Keith, but seemed to do a double take at his face and decide against it.

“So wait. Do you think the Lions are what’s giving us away?” 

“...yeah.” If Black still spent energy ‘talking’ to him after one ride, what was there to say that she wasn’t still connected to Zarkon?


	3. Chapter Three

Upon hearing Keith’s suspicions, Shiro had begun retreating to the Den to try and bond with Black regularly, a process that was helped along by the now-frequent attacks on the castle. They were running out of whatever it was that the teludav had been using to open wormholes, and were going to have to risk stopping for supplies. The sooner that they could get rid of whatever the Empire was using to track them, the sooner that they could recover from the constant assault on the castle. Keith was interested in looking through the data that Pidge had lifted from the Garrison, but they couldn’t even get a solid three-hours without Zarkon and crew appearing, so all they could do upon coming in from a Galra attack was prepare for the next one.

It was wearing on everybody. They had tried eating and sleeping in shifts, but the problem was that none of those shifts could include Allura, as she was the one responsible for working the teludav. She and Coran waved it off, as Alteans needed only a tenth of the sleep that humans did, but it was clear that she was reaching her breaking point. They would have to end this soon.

Time passed in a panicked frenzy, and even the ship’s day-cycles had lost their meaning by now. Still, Keith kept transitioning into something less and less human, his performance in battle affected by the pain and exhaustion accompanying the changes. It had gotten to the point that even if there was time to train and spar, Keith wouldn’t take it. He couldn’t. As the changes in his body became more and more apparent, Lance and Hunk (Shiro had scheduled the three of them on one shift, with him and Pidge on the other) had taken it upon themselves to stay close and offer uncomfortably sincere support, helping Keith move around the Castle or fetching things when he was too wracked with pain to stand and frequently reminding Keith that he wasn’t alone. Even Red had been assisting him, taking mental impressions of what they should do in battle in stead of his actual physical commands to her console. Knowing how shitty their outlook was right now, Keith wished he could offer some way to actually offer some kind of help to his friends in turn, but, even though the pain and exhaustion had finally let up these past two cycles, unless there was something to punch, or now-claw, hovering awkwardly on the edge of his friends’ proximity was the extent of his abilities.

Red grumbled in his mind, presence flaring at him. She didn’t withdraw from the connection, letting him feel the full force of her frustration.

Keith sighed, taking the burning in his mind, so similar to his own, in stride. He removed his helmet to scratch at the back of his neck, as lightly as his claws would allow. In the last few cycles the fluffy patches around his body had expanded all across his torso and it seemed like every inch of his, now completely purple, skin, had started to grow a coat of the soft substance. While the suit had been a good-enough band-aid solution for his claws and the ways that his hands and feet had shifted (Yes, he had lost some digits. Yes, they had grown in pads. No, he wasn’t going to think about it.), it felt awful against fur. 

Honestly, Keith thought fur just felt awful in general. He wished that he could just shave it all off. 

In spite of the discomfort the suit caused, he hadn’t changed out of it, running it through a cleaner when he washed up and stepping right back into it after he dried off. The Empire had yet to let up; The time between attacks seemed to be shortening, if nothing else. The Castle was too frequently under attack for any of the Paladins to be out of their armor for long. For Keith, it was probably for the best. Without the covering the suit provided, he probably would have clawed himself open several times over by now in his discomfort, and at least this way, he didn’t have to see how inhuman he had become every time he looked down. The changes had been painful so far, manifesting in extended periods of gnawing aches in every place he could name, exhaustion, and unpredictable high-level stabs when who-knew-what shifted inside of him. 

Although Coran would run a diagnostic scan each cycle, the Altean wasn’t a xenomedic by any means. Coran could take the scans of him from before and compare, but those comparisons alone weren’t helpful, as nobody on the ship was intimately familiar with Galran anatomy or neurochemistry. Keith wouldn’t waste anyone’s time with that. (And if he _really_ didn’t want to think about how extensive the differences between Galra and humans were, he doubted that anyone was going to call him out on it.) The daily scans only seemed to serve the function of verifying that, yes, Keith was still alive. 

Worse than the physical changes, if only because of the near-constant presence of the sensation even after the rest of the physical pain had passed, Keith became aware of a painless ache that quickly encompassed every waking moment. He didn’t know if the stress of Zarkon’s pursuit had brought it on or if it was a product of the change he was dealing with. It was an exclusively mental sensation. He couldn’t find words to describe it and likewise, he couldn’t find a way to relieve it. The not-ache left him on edge, even more than he had been before, flinching when people got too close and having a constant, irrational sense that somewhere, something terrible had happened that would affect everything, and that he just didn’t know what it was yet. 

Coran chalked it up to changes in brain chemistry, something that the castle tech was so far, unable to treat. The castle could synthesize Earth medication only because Pidge knew the chemical structure of a couple of common drugs. To try and synthesize a medication using chemicals that they didn’t understand to regulate a biology that they didn’t understand would just be reckless, so Keith would just have to deal with it somehow. He had always been prone to curling in on himself, self-hugging, the mandated therapists had called it, but nowadays it seemed that he couldn’t stop.

Red brushed across his mind in sympathy, and he tried to send some sense of reassurance back. He’d be alright. What other choice was there?

With an extended beep, the walkway to the medbay from the bridge opened, lights brightening into what was typical for the day-cycle. “Guys, we’ve got a possible location for teludav lenses.” Shiro called into the room, where he, Lance, and Hunk were taking their sleep shift. Keith turned onto his side, and cracked an eye at Shiro.“Keith, wake them up.” 

Keith nodded, jostling Hunk awake, and tearing the blanket that Lance had huddled under away. Shiro explained the situation to them. Coran had found that an Unilu trade stop was still classified as ‘active,’ even though it was in Galra territory. “It’s registered as a civilian area in the data we’ve scavenged, but I still want you to bring your weapons for when this goes wrong. Just keep them out of sight.” Shiro explained. “You guys, Pidge, and Coran, will take a cruiser from the flight deck, and will try to get ahold of the lenses without attracting attention.” He looked between Lance and Keith and repeated. _“Without attracting attention._ ” Lance made an offended noise. “I’m staying behind to work with Black again, so me and Allura will be on standby just in case you need a giant black lion to harrass a civillian base and make the Coalition look like terrorists to those involved while you make an escape.”

Hunk offered him a strained smile. “We understand. We’re going in with a plan, getting the magic space thing, and coming back.” To Keith’s surprise, he put an arm around his shoulders, mouth twitching when Keith stiffened at the proximity, before turning back to Shiro. “We’ll be fine!”

Lance put a fist to his chin. “You know… If we’re going into Empire territory, doesn’t that make Keith the least suspicious looking one of us?”

Slightly, Keith cringed in on himself at the attention, staring at the corner of the door behind Shiro. Before he could respond though, Lance chimed in.

“Dude. It’s Keith.” He forcefully patted Keith on the back. “This guy’s gonna be suspicious no matter what shape or color he is. I’d say it’s part of his mystique, but honestly, I blame the hairstyle.” Lance jerked a thumb towards Keith’s now purple, pink-striped hair. Privately, Keith had been worried that it would all fall out- he had never seen a Galra with fur long enough to be called hair. Instead, it had simply changed texture (It wouldn’t lay flat no matter what he was doing now, but it was _almost_ long enough to tie back; He could wait.) and grown even thicker somehow, matching the thicker tufts of fur that he had running down his neck and spine.

Keith felt his ears flatten, and his fur rise the opposite way. He looked between Hunk and Lance, then turned his attention back to Shiro. “You said Coran had disguises for everyone?”

  
In the end, they had decided to go in a pod, forgoing their flight suits for bizarre costumes over their casual clothes. He couldn’t wear his armour since they wanted to avoid a fight, and upon trying, he realized that his casual clothes wouldn’t work for him either. His fur, while short on his legs, mostly, pulled roughly against the denim of his jeans as he tried to slide them on, and when he tried to force it, the claws on his feet just got caught in the material.

Damn it. Those were his only pants. Allura was touchy about them borrowing clothes from the Castle’s previous occupants, so he and the other paladins -barring Lance, who seemed to pull casual clothes out of nowhere- did their best not to press the issue. “Dude, you coming?” Lance poked his head into Keith’s room, where he was changing. The blue paladin didn’t bother to stifle his snort when he saw Keith’s dilemma.

“It’s not funny.” Keith glared, feeling the fluff around his neck and face puff up.

Lance waved a hand, smiling, but not meeting his eyes. “Let’s just make something with the synthesizer. Coran showed me how back on Arus.”

That was probably the best idea. He didn’t think his boots would begin to let his feet inside after his toes had fused into 3 clawed digits, and his heels had narrowed and lifted. He was lucky he could still walk without shoes, and wasn’t eager to mess with them now.

Lance brought him to the synthesizer set aside for fabrics, thankfully without direct teasing about the issue, though Keith still bristled every time Lance turned to look at him. 

Ignoring the blue paladin’s increasingly bizarre suggestions, Keith used a flightsuit template to generate a dark garment, somewhere in between grey and black, with reinforcement padding his knees and feet, and a second bootlike layer around his shins, where he could hide the holster for his blade. With a second thought, he grabbed his jacket to wear over it. Even with the flight suit covering nearly all of his visible skin, lately he had been feeling anxious and exposed by default, and adding layers could only help.

“Ugh... Keith.” Lance groaned, when he saw what he had picked out. “You could at least pull off ‘edgy’ well without the jacket. We really need to work on your fashion sense.”

“Sure, right after we work on your priorities.” He said blandly. They hadn’t even left and he was already tired of this. He ~~loved~~ liked the younger Paladins, but they could be _infuriatingly_ unfocused in a situation where distraction could mean their deaths or worse. “What kind of fashion do you think exists in space, anyways?”

Lance took the question over the jab, eyeing the armful of fabrics Coran was lugging to the pod. “A quiznak-load of scarves apparently.”

In spite of himself, Keith smiled a little.“That doesn’t mean what you think it means.” 

Coran’s choice of disguise (they...wanted to be considered pirates for some reason? Keith didn’t get it.) for the team left Keith almost relieved that the older man had decided that, in Empire territory, he didn’t need one. He almost looked like a full Galra at this point, after all. Nobody would assume he was with Voltron, Coran reasoned.

The comment, though said without malice, stopped Keith in his tracks for a second, his better mood washing away in an instant. Hunk and Lance turned to look at him in concern. Keith stared ahead, and hoped his expression wouldn’t give him away as he started walking towards the flight deck again. They didn’t have time for a heart to heart, and Keith’s mind had been spinning enough that he couldn’t put into words why he was upset anyway.

He didn’t even know why the explanation had stung; It was just a fact. He looked like one of the bad guys. Even if he wore his armour out, he bet that nobody would look at him and think that he was a paladin of Voltron. His ears had turned backwards without his input, so he flipped his hood up, shaking his head. “Okay, whatever. Let’s just go.” He said, not quite meaning to speak to anyone.

Around him, Lance and Hunk exchanged a look. 

“Boys, let’s go!” Coran called from the cruiser, Pidge seated beside him. “Chop, chop!”

“Get in losers. We’re going shopping.” Pidge shot them an exhausted smile.

As they landed and began to go their separate ways, Keith’s unease began to ramp up, though he couldn’t explain why. In his peripheral, he saw a couple of shoppers’ eyes pass over, busy and uninterested, only to turn back, seeming to zero in on him, specifically. He pretended to ignore them as he walked. He didn’t know why he was standing out in a Galra occupied sector, looking full Galra himself, but he wanted it to stop.

Still, he decided to take his knife to a weapons dealer, wanting to see if he could dig up any information on his mother. Scanning the nearby shops, he zeroed in on one that was covered wall to wall in swords, no two looking the same. The shopkeeper briefly looked confused as he approached, then hardened his expression into a glare. “Scram kid. These aren’t toys.”

Steeling himself, Keith pulled out his knife, holding it so that the shopkeeper could see. “I was wondering what you could tell me about this knife.”

The shopkeeper’s eyes passed over the blade once, annoyed, “What are you even doing with a-” They straightened, taking a closer look. “Where’d you steal this from?” Keith huffed, ears twitching in exasperation. Human or not, everybody always seemed to assume that.

“I didn’t steal anything.” He ground out, shoulders tense. The shopkeeper didn’t look convinced.

“Listen,” The shopkeeper waved a scaled hand. “That luxite you have is straight up unobtainable. The way that they make it...” The shopkeeper shuddered. “Barbaric. The Emperor banned the practice thousands of decaphoebes ago.” The shopkeeper slid an arm under the table. “Now kid. Ya got a couple of options. One’s leaving the sword with me. _I’ll_ make it disappear before it gets you and your circle into big shit and you won’t have to do a thing. I won’t even charge you!” He gave Keith a sleazy grin. That wasn’t going to happen, and Keith said as much.

The shopkeeper’s grin disappeared, and he rolled his eyes. “Then you can go ahead and do the squeaky clean thing; Go turn it into security and they’ll get ya to the proper channels.” His eyes roamed Keith’s face. “One of the two, runt. I know how you Gal’s are about your young, but this kinda thing is way over your head. Holding onto it is bound to work out ugly.”

Keith met his eyes, frowning. “I’ll... go turn it in then.” He lied, trying to keep his tone even. The shopkeeper crossed his arms and nodded. “Head of security usually hits up the sustenance post in half a varga. Find him there.”

Sustenance post… He guessed that meant the place where they were serving food. Sheathing the knife, Keith walked off, following the smell of cooked meats. He’d go find Hunk, he decided. Splitting up hadn’t sat well with him in the first place. Lately he had been torn between wanting everyone he knew in his line of sight, and wanting to be invisible and unreachable himself. Keith didn’t know what else to do with himself on a mission like this, so he might as well make sure that Hunk wasn’t in the same area as security when they came by. The larger paladin’s easy-to-read anxiety would give them away if any guards noticed.

Upon reaching the food court, Keith did a double take. Hunk was behind the counter, scolding a large Galra. Keith felt a headache coming on. For fucks sake, they were supposed to be discrete… Feeling his ears turn backwards and fur stand on end, Keith made his way towards the older Paladin. 

“Oh, hey Keith. What’s up?” Hunk asked.

“I…” Keith just waved a hand palm-up in Hunk’s direction, and shot him an accusing glare. “What are you doing?” He ground out, careful to keep his tone neutral.

Hunk began to explain how he hadn’t managed to go ten minutes without attracting attention and being _enslaved_ by a cook of all things. He had expected better of Hunk, and maybe he shouldn’t have. The guy had been going along with Lance’s idea to break into and steal from a Garrison research site after all. (Yeah, Keith had been doing the same thing that night, but he had actually been looking for Shiro, and he had nothing left to lose anyways.) This was dangerous, even if the Galra involved wasn’t a soldier, a discrete look around showed that several of his patrons were. If they started a fight here or were too noticeable, they would definitely lose and compromise the others. Feeling his unease turn into anxiety, Keith tried to keep his hands from shaking or twitching towards where his knife was sheathed. He was used to situations like this, so what was messing him up now? He knew he had to stay calm, and he knew how to stay cool under pressure, but it felt like there was a second mind steering his body, making his heart beat too fast and turning his thoughts from forming an escape plan into an indecipherable rush of _hiderunhidestopcall._

“Are you… purring?” Keith opened his mouth to ask what Hunk meant, but his words were choked by a rattling sound somewhere between his throat and chest. Feeling outside of himself, Keith guessed that he was, though there was nothing pleasant about this situation. He shot Hunk a sulky look, daring him to comment. He’d just have to find a way to get Hunk out of this himself, without giving away the others.

“There a problem here?” The bulky Galra approached them, frown deepening as he saw Keith. If they got caught here, there’d be no chance to run away.

Hunk straightened. “Er… No sir!” He backed up, waving his hands in front of him.

The Galra approached, looking confused. “Why is…” He trailed off, before turning to Keith eyes intense. “Let me handle this.” He told Hunk. “Don’t have any myself, but I’ve been in a circle with kits this one’s age before. When they get worked up like this, someone’s gotta help bring them down.”

Looking confused, Hunk backed down, giving the Galra a shaky nod. 

“Alright, kitto.” The Galra’s voice softened. ”You’re gonna need to calm down if we’re gonna get you back to your unit.-Zarkon knows what kind of commander would post one with kits out here.” He mumbled to himself. ”Slow down your breathing. 4 ticks both in and out usually does the trick.” He reached a hand towards Keith’s head and, almost painfully hard, Keith flinched away, the vibration deep in his throat taking on a higher pitch and growing so strong it hurt. Keith’s head swam, and he felt both frozen in place and ready to crawl out of his skin.

“Okay then....” He removed his hand, but leaned forward, stilling for a second as he sniffed Keith. The cook tensed. ”Where’s your circle? I can’t smell anyone on you at all, much less nest-mates.”

Unable to speak, Keith just shook his head. In that moment, the court burst into chaos as another, rotund, Galra burst in shouting.

“Got you now pirate! Where are your friends?” Hunk burst into a sprint, grabbing Keith’s wrist and hurling him forward as he cleared the food booth.

“Run!” 

On reflex, Keith stumbled back onto his feet, catching up with Hunk, trying to force a plan through his still-spinning head. Though he had been locked up before, the transition to running seemed to have helped things. They’d have to retreat, and make enough chaos that the others would know to withdraw too. Run. Break things. Find the others. Easy enough.

He and Hunk continued through the mall, finally spotting Lance and Pidge...and a cow.

“Pirate scum!” The Galra snarled after them. “You won’t get away with trafficking in my jurisdiction!”

“Quiznack.” Lance said. “Get on the cow, I have an idea!”

His idea ended up being riding the cow’s hover pedestal downhill, which, while ridiculous, sped the four (Keith was not counting the cow) of them up enough that when they crashed into Coran they had enough of a lead to cram themselves into ship and get off of the moon. 

“Okay,” breathed Lance. “That was waaay close.” He looked to Coran. “Did you get the lenses?”

“Oh we got them alright.” Coran tried to wink at them. Lance had explained the gesture to him, but the Altean had insisted on doing it with both eyes, insisting that a one-eyed expression would be half-hearted..”The Unilu drove quite the hard bargain, but we came out on top in the end.”

Pidge turned to Hunk, grinning harder than Keith had ever seen them. “Get this.” They shoved a box into Hunk’s hands. “There was a store with Earth merch. They had all sorts of stuff from the K-70’s and 80’s. We got the original _Killbot Phantasm_.”

Hunk hummed, still looking at Keith anxiously as the purplette tried to catch his breath, a hand to his chest. “Cool, cool, cool...” He pointed, laying the other hand on Keith’s back in a grounding motion. This time, at least, Keith didn’t flinch. “What’s with the cow?”

“It was free with purchase.” Lance explained.

Keith continued to listen to the others, Hunk’s hand drawing slow circles from shoulder to shoulder as he tried to even out his breathing. He couldn’t seem to come down from the panic of the mission. The vibrations had quieted down as they were running for their lives, but as the adrenaline faded, they returned with an intensity that caused his whole body to tremble. He tried to count his breaths like the older Galra had asked, but the numbers kept slipping through his thoughts as if he was losing time somewhere.

He jumped as another hand reached for his shoulder, hitting his head on the roof above him. 

“Keith!” Lance had made his way over, crouching in front of him. “What’s wrong?” When Keith didn’t answer, Lance turned to the others. “The mission went well. Why’s he freaking out?”

Unable to speak, Keith just closed his eyes and shook his head, reaching up to where he had hit it.

“He was doing that earlier too.” Hunk frowned.

“What’s he even doing?” Pidge asked. 

“Oh, I was afraid of this...” Coran muttered, before glancing at the others. “I don’t know the _exact_ specifics, but the noise Keith is making is a stress call typical of Galran children. Even adults will do it, in extreme situations.”

Pidge frowned. “I don’t think getting chased through an alien mall counts as extreme.”

Behind him, Keith heard Hunk speak. “He thinks it does, though. At least right now.”

“So,” Lance turned towards Keith, concern clear in his expression. “He’s having some kind of a breakdown?”

“I believe so.” Coran answered. “Lone Galra end up having significant struggles with emotional regulation, among other things. Adults can manage to self-regulate, to an extent, but the body Keith changed into _isn’t_ an adult; It won’t be for a long time. Even if he has the experience of a human adult, he isn’t functionally human anymore, so the coping skills he learned… if he actually had any to begin with, very likely won’t be compatible. Whatever system you humans have, he’s working with a completely different one.” Lance moved to put an arm around Keith’s shoulders, frown deepening as Keith flinched away from the motion, before leaning into the touch. 

Pidge looked them over with concern. “So his neurotransmitters and receptors changed too, then.”

Coran nodded. “This was a genetic level shift, where his human-type DNA was triggered by Quintessence to mimic the unused sequences from his galran. That entails much more than a surface level change.”

“How is he still alive!? That’s so…” Pidge growled. “This is so fucked up.”

“It… wasn’t likely that he would survive the entire process.” Coran admitted. “I believe the strength of the dose of quintessence, and possibly some assistance from his Lion got him through the worst of it. The Lions have helped their Paladins recover from mortal blows before, using their own energy to extend their Paladin’s life long enough for their body to recover.”

Hunk frowned his eyes distant. “He was…really bad for awhile there. It’s only been a day or two that he’s been up and about.”

Pidge growled. “No shit. Did he say a word about it when we went out to fight in the Lions though? No,” They sighed, grabbing the side of their glasses. “Shit. I’ve got more than a few questions, but let’s start with ‘How can we actually help him?’”

“You’ve all already been doing most of what you’re capable of. Sleeping in groups in the med bay, constantly initiating physical contact, preventing instability in the unit…” Coran counted off on his fingers. “The best thing you all can do is defeat Zarkon or at the very least, end his pursuit of the Lions for long enough for us to regroup.”

As Keith leaned into Lance and listened to the others talk around him, the vibrations slowed and eventually stopped. Lance turned his way. “Back with us?”

“I’ve been here.” He stared down a corner by Coran’s foot. “Sorry… Everything’s just extreme.” He had tried to think about how likely that they were to get caught objectively, but as soon as he caught wind of Hunk being in trouble, his stomach had dropped- the way that it did when he fell backwards more than a couple of feet- , and it had just...never landed.

“I mean,” Hunk said “undercover missions in space are pretty extreme. So are not undercover missions in space.”

“Everything that we’ve encountered in space is so far out of our league that it goes right back round from horrifying to funny.”

“I’d say that I don’t know what’s wrong with me” Keith said levely, looking down at his hands, covered, but still noticeably clawed. “But I do.”

“Nope!” Lance tapped him lightly on the head with his fist. “None of that. Start saying edgy crap like that and you’ll be on an infinite loop of it for who knows how long.”

Keith batted his hand away without malice, not knowing what to say. He was a liability right now, causing problem after problem, but all the others would do about him was try to help him. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

When they made it back to the Castleship, Shiro and Allura greeted them with wide smiles, radiating satisfaction. Shiro and Zarkon had had some sort of mental-but-not-mental showdown in some space called the astral plane, where Black had finally intervened, cutting her bond with Zarkon off for good. Keith didn’t understand it, but Allura seemed to take it to mean that attacks from the flagship wouldn’t be coming as fast and that they could finally begin making alliances again.

“That’s what I wanted to talk about.” Shiro said, smile dimming a little. “Keith, can we see your knife again?” Wordlessly, Keith pulled the sheathed knife out of his boot and handed it to Shiro, who unsheathed and unwrapped the blade. 

“The Galra who rescued me had a knife like this and left those coordinates in my arm.” Shiro explained. “I think he and your mother were aligned, and I think that making contact with whatever rebel organization they’re a part of should be our next step.” He re-sheathed the knife, and passed it back to Keith.

“You mean to use Keith as a bargaining chip?” Allura’s voice was dangerously even. “Galra are protective of their young, but I doubt they will put them above Zarkon’s commands.”

“No,” Shiro frowned “I wasn’t even considering that approach. I wouldn’t.” He assured Keith. “It’s just that _they_ put a lot into getting us together in the first place. We should try contact them and get more information about their operation. We might all have the same goal in mind.”

“It’d be pretty cool if there were Galra on our side.” Lance said, hesitantly. “I mean real ones, not just Keith,” He blanched. “Ugh… that sounded worse, sorry. But seriously, if the Coalition pulls in Galra, this wouldn’t just be an intergalactic war against a force that looks unstoppable; It’d be a civil war within that unstoppable force too.”

Hunk looked thoughtful. “You know, just from watching Galran civilians eat at that space mall, it looks like the Empire’s pretty rough on everyone. Food’s being rationed through sustenance posts like the one back there, and it looks like there’s a lot of monitoring of their citizens. Almost like a fascist state back on Earth.”

“I don’t want to be too optimistic about it.” Pidge said. “But if they do turn out to be people we can work with, it would be _a lot_ easier to get information on the Empire. Our best method right now is a pirate-style attack on bases and their data, which draws a lot of attention and _always_ ends in a fight. We’ve been really lucky so far.”

Allura frowned, abandoning her regal bearing to cross her arms anxiously. It was clear that the idea of working alongside unknown Galra stressed her out. “You all think it’s a good idea then?”

“I think that, if we’re careful, it’s more likely to work out than what we’ve been doing.” Shiro was steady. “I’m not suggesting that we leave ourselves open or abandon caution, just that we open negotiations and see if they’d be a good fit for the coalition.”

Allura hummed, thinking. Eventually she nodded, scales flashing with resolve. “Then we know our next objective. Once castle repairs are finished, we will investigate these coordinates.” She put a hand to her head. “We will resume team exercises tomorrow, and focus on repairs to the castle for now. Coran will get a schedule arranged.” She looked over the group. “Before the movement is over, I would like to contact the Olkarion as well in order to affirm that our last visit to them didn’t provoke the Empire into causing further harm to their people. I believe they made you an offer as well, Shiro, regarding your arm.” Hesitantly, Shiro nodded. Keith could tell that he was about as bothered by the idea of anyone messing with his arm as he was by the fact of having his current prosthetic in the first place. 

“Make your decision on that matter before we begin that transmission tomorrow.” The princess said, pressing forward. “The fail-safes in your current arm have been removed, and we have someone else who should be able to open Galran bio-locks now, so duty-wise, you have no obligation to us either way.”

“Understood.” Shiro turned to the other paladins. “It’s been a long couple of movements. Let’s get some food, get some sleep, and tackle this next mission when we’re at our best.”

After a shower, and couple of helpings of food goo, Keith began wandering back to the med bay, where the other Paladins were crowding around Pidge’s laptop. It looked like they were looking at photos.

“-att _literally_ stuck it into the blender and gave it to Mom.” 

“Okay, that’s just gross.” Shiro shuddered. 

Pidge looked down, looking smaller than usual. Keith crawled up onto the bedding at their side and leaned into it, hoping that physically being present would be enough to make them feel better. It seemed that it was, because the younger Paladin gave him a surprised smile and it seemed like the mood of the room lifted somehow. “She’s okay without us. Heck, she’s probably on the team looking for us. The Garrison wouldn’t be left standing if she wasn’t.”

“When do you think we can go back to Earth?” Lance asked. “We’ve been gone a super-long time, and it’s not like it’s not going to be a target.” He pointed at Shiro. “They picked you guys up in our solar system.”

Shiro nodded. “Yeah. Let’s just think best case scenarios for tonight.” He said looking at Pidge. “If somehow, everything works out, we’ll find Pidge’s family and bring them back.” He rubbed his head. “Having Sam around when we go back will bypass a lot of the Garrison’s political bullshi-” He caught himself, Keith smirking at the near miss. “Ill-advised political maneuvers.”

Lance cackled gesturing wildly. “Can I just say how great it is that the Garrison’s prescribed role model, recognizes how dumb the Garrison is?”

“I wouldn’t say dumb.” Shiro defended. “Bureaucratic. You have to be careful about who you’re working under.”

“You could stick them in a lake full of sharks, and the higher-ups would be too busy arguing with each-other to make it back to shore.” Lance said dismissively. Pidge frowned at him, their expression closing off.

“Why would a lake be full of sharks?” Keith asked.

Lance’s face twisted up. “Ugh… I don’t know. I’m running on 3 hours of sleep and a dream right now.” He waved a hand dismissively, before looking back at Keith. “Dude, you’ve gotta change into something comfortable at some point. Wearing space spandex all the time has to be bad for your skin.”

Keith ignored the suggestion. “You dream about sharks?” Lance threw a pillow at his face, groaning.

Keith used it to prop himself up, looking at the screen over Pidge’s shoulder. “You said that you had what the Garrison recorded on me and my mom?”

Pidge nodded. “Hunk!” they called out to the Paladin straggling in. “Toss me my bag.” He did, settling on the other side of Keith, and Pidge shuffled through it.  
“Here.” They pulled out a black rectangle with red and white tape stuck to it. “I prioritized text over anything else so that there’d be enough room, but it’s enough to give ya nightmares.”

“Too late.” Shiro deadpanned, lips curling upwards.

Pidge booted the drive up onto the screen, and it loaded an intimidating collection of folders with a… questionable set of names. There were generic sets titled after different forms of media, movies and music and such, and then there were folders titled things like “secretxxx,” “doubleultrasecret,” “mattgoaway,” and “totallynotporn.” 

A snort. Keith looked over at Shiro, who was trying to compose his expression. “Katie.” He said, voice cracking over a laugh.

Pidge smirked, then clicked on the folder reserved for TV shows, selecting a folder called “DocWhoS8” and typing in a couple of passwords. A video began playing on her laptop, and with practiced skill, she scrolled it to a certain position, clicking on a phone box in the frame and moving the track pad in a pattern. Another directory popped up, and Lance began to doze off as she went through the motions to get to the data.

“This is taking forever.” Lance whined. “Spill the tea already.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Pidge waved him off. “Had to make sure they couldn’t go through my stuff and know I committed a super-ultra-felony. I’ll do it better next time. Compared to what we’ve seen on the ship and in Galra bases, Earth tech is easy.” The screen went black, and then another set of windows popped up. “There we go.” They pointed. “There’s the written correspondence between the Garrison and your foster homes. Don’t read that unless you want to be pissed off for the next couple of months… Your med evals, and the military interventions after them because even when you were half-human you were still heckin’ weird.” They turned to him, eyes glinting. “Remember when you got your tetanus shot and were hospitalized for 3 weeks? They don’t know either, but they were looking into weaponizing it because the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to space warfare.” Pidge smiled, all teeth. “You weren’t even in middle school and Admiral Sanda recommended disappearing you to be a test subject for that project. When we go back, she’s one to watch out for.” They turned to Lance. “It’s a _fucking good thing_ that they argue too much to get stuff done.”

Most of Keith’s memories between his dad and meeting Shiro were hazy, but, as wracked with pain and fever hallucinations as those memories were, he definitely remembered that time. His throat started vibrating again at the thought, a whining (fuck no, he wasn’t going to whine) sound overlaying the rumble. He sucked in a breath before it got too loud, and held it, hoping it would recede for now. He couldn’t react like this every time he thought about something bad. It wasn’t functional.

He seemed to get away with it, though Hunk was eying him. “What about my parents?” he choked out.

Pidge nodded, clicking on some images. A Galran woman in flannel appeared on the screen, she stared at the camera, face twisted with irritation the same way that Keith’s did. “This is the one who said she was your mom. I didn’t download the conversations, since they went long, but I can sum it up for your, and it’s transcribed in here if you want to read it.”

Hunk frowned. “Okay, wait a second. She looks just like human Keith, just purple! And… you know. Why does Galra Keith look even less like Galra Keith’s mom?”

“Way I’m thinking, the genetic traits that his human genes changed to mimic included a fuck-ton of recessives.”

“Plus, the fur.” Lance pointed out, speedily ruffling Keith’s hair. “Can’t really see those cheekbones.” Said fur was rising up as Keith tensed, growling at Lance before he could catch himself. He pushed Lance’s hand away as Lance laughed him off.

Pidge elbowed Lance in the side of the head before turning back to Keith. “She came to the Garrison, leaving your dad and a few of his friends with dirty laundry on said Garrison to blast if she didn’t come back. Most of it is her negotiating for you and your dad’s safety and clearance for her to leave without getting shot out of the sky.”

“Did she say why she was leaving?”

Pidge shook their head. “Dude, she didn’t even say her name. Some admirals talked in circles with her for hours. She disarmed, like four attempts to capture her, promised that Earth would face retribution if anything happened to you or your dad. Then like, as she was leaving, they actually started attempting to negotiate with her.” She opened a text document and scrolled.

“Right here’s, the part that gets me. She’s saying that she’s there as a terrain scout for the Empire, introducing herself as a threatening entity.” Keith frowned at Pidge, waiting for them to explain. Pidge sighed, “Basically, she’s saying she came upon Earth on an Empire-assigned route and that, in a set period of time, the Empire will be returning. She swung it so that hurting you or your dad would be seen as an act of war, _and_ so that that the Garrison would start prepping for an invasion.”

“The Empire doesn’t work like that though.” Shiro frowned. “I don’t know how they scout, but from the first attempt to attack her, those people would have been classified as ‘combatants.’ They would either have been killed in that fight or given the chance to surrender and be taken to the work camps or arena.”

“Yeah,” Pidge yawned. “It’s a load of crap. She sold it, they bought it. Baby Keith wasn’t disappeared and dismembered for science, which is better than what he would have gotten in the Empire, probably. Yay us.” They raised a fist using the other hand to stifle another yawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, COVID stay at home orders mean that I have no excuses not to write, so there's that. I'm kind of eyeing the Trails of Cold Steel series as my next victim.
> 
> Stay safe, stay inside, and try to stay sane.
> 
> We've always had a stockpile of potential apocalypses, we've just gotta get this one out of the way and make sure we're ready for the next.


End file.
